Lambrusco

Lambrusco is not one grape but a family of related varieties grown across Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy, and the differences between them matter more than the shared name suggests. Sorbara is the palest and most perfumed, high in acidity, with an aroma of violets and sour cherry. Grasparossa is darker, more tannic and fuller. Salamino sits between them and supplies much of the volume.

The wine's reputation in the English-speaking world was shaped by a specific commercial episode: enormous quantities of sweet, industrially produced Lambrusco exported in the 1970s and 1980s, which sold spectacularly and then collapsed, leaving the name attached to something cheap and sugary. Almost none of that resembles what is drunk in Modena and Reggio Emilia, where Lambrusco is dry, savoury and served with the local food as a matter of course.

Made properly it is a fizzy dry red — usually tank method, sometimes refermented in bottle — with fresh acidity, modest alcohol, light tannin and dark cherry and plum fruit. The bubbles and the acid together do something specific and useful: they cut through the fat of prosciutto, Parmigiano, cured pork and the general richness of Emilian cooking, which is among the richest in Italy. It is one of the very few red wines that genuinely works chilled.

The better producers work with old vines, low yields and single subzones, and the results have quietly rebuilt the category's credibility over the last two decades. A dry Lambrusco di Sorbara, pale as dark rosé and bracingly tart, is a long way from the wine the name still conjures for many drinkers.

The subzone matters more than almost anything else. Lambrusco di Sorbara is pale, high-acid and floral, sometimes barely darker than a rosé, and is the connoisseur's choice; Grasparossa di Castelvetro is dark, tannic and fuller; Salamino sits between them and provides most of the volume.

Method matters too. Most is made by the Charmat tank method, but a growing number of producers refermenta in bottle and leave the wine undisgorged, producing a cloudy, dry, savoury style that is closer to the region's historic practice.

The sweetness scale runs secco, semisecco, amabile and dolce, and the export disaster of the 1970s and 1980s was built almost entirely on the sweet end. Anything labelled secco from a named subzone is a different drink from the one the name still conjures, and it is among the best value fizzy wine in Europe.